Celebrating Alaskan Museums

What have we achieved? How did we get where we are today?

How are our communities interlinked?

A visit to a museum helps answer all of these questions. This week, museums around the world are uniting to celebrate International Museum Day on May 18.

The 2014 theme is “museum collections make connections,” and so we started thinking about some of the museums, cultural centers and other places around Alaska that have helped us make connections—whether personal, cultural or intellectual. One of our favorites is the Sitka National Historical Park. It’s not strictly a museum, instead being part park, part cultural exhibit, and part window into history.

An urban park, it’s Alaska’s smallest in the national park system. It’s also the state’s first, established in 1910.

The park represents important events in the state’s cultural, political and industrial histories but is probably most famous with visitors for the 18 totem poles that stand along the park’s thickly forested paths.

The totem poles were collected from villages on Prince of Wales Island in the early 1900s by Governor John Green Brady for an exhibition down south about the recently acquired Alaskan territory. He asked village elders to donate the poles as part of a tourism effort that would inspire and entice travelers to come north.

Visitors to the park can enjoy the traditionally carved poles that were part of the original installation in the park as well as poles that were made with modern influences in recent years. Maintaining the totem poles and providing a space where they can be seen by the public—entrance to the park is free—has helped make sure that the poles and the carving techniques represented have been preserved as artwork.

But the totem poles are only one third of the historical significance of the park. Sitka was a long-term Russian settlement before Alaska was purchased by the United States government. The land where the park is located today was the site of important battles and skirmishes between the Russians and local Kiks.ádi Tlingit. Other important places within the park are the site of the Tlingit fort, the Russian Memorial and the log house that was once the Russian Bishop’s home.

Did you know?

There are four kinds of traditional totem poles found in the Sitka National Historical Park:

• Crest poles, which illustrate clan lore and history • Mortuary poles, which honor someone who has passed away • History poles, which help pass on stories from the oral history traditions • Ridicule poles, which address inequalities or community disputes and attempt to shame others into action

While you’re at the park, don’t miss a look at the fusion of modern and traditional motifs and techniques employed in the totem pole carved to recognize the park’s 100-year anniversary in 2010.

Learn more about the National Historical Park with these downloadable brochures.

Other notable museums and learning centers in Alaska

Not only a great source of learning and inspiration in our community, these organizations' websites and social media feeds offer great examples of outreach that works! Click here to learn about even more Alaskan museums.  Would you like to add another organization to this list? Let us know in the comments or drop us a line on social media.

Inupiat Heritage Center, Barrow

Alaska Native Heritage Center, Anchorage

Alutiiq Museum, Kodiak

The Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, Anchorage

Pratt Museum, Kachemak Bay

Alaska Jewish Museum, Anchorage

Hammer Museum, Haines

Prince William Sound Museum, Whittier

Alaska Veterans Museum, Anchorage

Totem Heritage Center, Ketchikan

Alaska Aviation Museum, Anchorage